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Fresh Korn: A brief respite from Europe
Riding a bike is fun. That’s why we all start riding, right? For most people that’s still why we ride, even when it becomes your job. Sometimes though when you’re mid-season and starting to wear down a bit it’s easy to forget how much straight up fun can be had on a bike.
After Paris-Roubaix I managed to sneak back home to Boulder for two and a half weeks. The first of those was spent frantically taking care of life and all that piles up when one is away for a few months. I sometimes joke how I can’t believe that people who have “real jobs” manage to take care of life on top of a full-time work schedule! While time on the road, both racing and training, is unbelievably intense, the time that cyclists have at home is pretty relaxed. After a while away though that time turns into craziness and I feel lucky to have had a week where the bike didn’t get much attention to attend to everything.
The next week was just getting going again and familiarizing the body with the machine. That first ride is always a shock: “My seat is too high, my bars are too long and low, these pedals seem sloppy, this lycra clown suit feels so damn tight.” Fortunately after a few hours the bicycle is back to being yet another perfectly integrated body part and turning over the pedals is back to being second nature.
After getting over the shock of getting back on the bike my real amazement turned to the incredible roads we’re blessed with around Boulder and the unbelievable number of cyclists enjoying them. After being away for a while I always forget how many people ride in Boulder, and after a cold winter my return to town coincided with the first real week of spring. Every 100 meters there was somebody on two wheels.
With no structure other than putting in some long rides in the hills I was able to enjoy some of the most stunning scenery imaginable; clear roads, riding in shorts, with snow piled up on either side feet high and snow capped mountains all around. You could see the smiles on fellow riders faces and the sense of elation from getting out and soaking up the long buried roads. After months in Europe, race-to-race, watching people enjoy their bikes to such a degree was truly refreshing. And then I headed out to Fruita.
Though I’m a roadie there are few things I enjoy more than escaping on the mountain bike for a few hours of fun on the trails. Somehow, in 8 years of living in Colorado I’d never managed to make it out to the western slope. Now that I have, I can’t believe what a fool I’d been! Fruita is home to what must be one of the most amazing trail networks we have in the US. It was also hosting the Fruita Fat Tire Festival this past weekend and what a scene that was! Trailheads were packed, and the grins plastered across every single face couldn’t have been bigger or more permanently fixed. Every rider on the trails was having the time of their life and the happiness was palpable. Watching entire families, groups of friends, and complete strangers that just happened to hook up on the trails, out playing on their machines was one of the most refreshing things I could have imagined, and it was impossible to not get wrapped up in the feeling and come off the trails feeling like a junior again.
While all of this might seem so simple and generally understood, I was so struck by it that I just couldn’t help but comment. For somebody that does race their bike because I love the sport, the life, and all that it has to offer, I, like everybody, still sometimes arrive at the point where riding and racing becomes a job. It’s not often, but at the end of a long block of racing and when the body starts to get run down and in need of a break I couldn’t have imagined a better way to enjoy it.
The reminder of how much joy these two-wheeled contraptions can provide and how much fun is derived from simply playing outside was the most refreshing thing I could have imagined. In the last few days at home focused training is back on the schedule, and before I know it I’ll be back to Europe and on the starting line again, but after these past few weeks I couldn’t be readier or more excited to get back at it.
